HARTFORD, Feb. 21 — Connecticut’s former chief justice, William J. Sullivan, apologized repeatedly to lawmakers on Wednesday for delaying the release of a court opinion while deliberations on his successor were beginning, saying he realized that his actions had ended up derailing the appointment.

The testimony, which followed months of political wrangling, is the latest chapter in a long saga for Justice Sullivan, who has been sanctioned by a state judicial review panel for holding up the release of the opinion in what the panel said was an effort to help a colleague, Justice Peter T. Zarella, secure the appointment.

Last March, days after Justice Sullivan said that he would be stepping down, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced that she was nominating Justice Zarella to succeed him.

That same week, Justice Sullivan directed court officials to delay the release of a potentially controversial 4-to-3 ruling on public access to court documents, in which Justice Zarella, along with Justice Sullivan, ruled with the majority to keep certain court records sealed.

After news of the delay prompted a political uproar, Justice Zarella asked the governor to withdraw his name.

Justice Sullivan said, “I deeply regret that outcome and I take full responsibility for it and for all my acts,” later adding that there was “no doubt” that Justice Zarella, who remains on the Supreme Court, “would be chief justice today except for this matter.”

Although he is no longer chief justice, Justice Sullivan still hears some cases as a senior justice working part time. The independent Judicial Review Council ruled in November that his actions had violated judicial ethics codes and suspended him for 15 days. He has appealed that sentence.

He had originally fought the legislature’s attempt to force him to testify as part of its investigation into the matter — going to court to fight a subpoena — but changed his mind in December.

Justice Sullivan — a Democrat appointed chief justice by former Gov. John G. Rowland, a Republican — first told Mrs. Rell, a Republican, of his plans to retire in December 2005, he said. She then suggested that she would nominate Justice Zarella, the only Republican on the bench and an ally of Justice Sullivan, to succeed him.

State legislators took particular umbrage at Justice Sullivan’s actions, saying that he had interfered with their responsibilities in assessing judicial nominees. Lawmakers learned of the delay in April, when another Supreme Court justice, David M. Borden, who is now the acting chief justice, wrote a letter to Senator Andrew J. McDonald, the chairman of the General Assembly’s joint Judiciary Committee.

In the letter, Justice Borden wrote that the “intent and effect of Chief Justice Sullivan’s conduct was to deprive the legislature of the timely knowledge of Justice Zarella’s vote in that case.”

Justice Sullivan said he did not know, and added that while he would not do the same thing again, he did not believe that he had broken any rules. “If I thought it was improper, I wouldn’t have done it,” he said.

“It wasn’t my intent to mislead anybody,” he added. “I wasn’t looking to go out in a cloud of catastrophe.

“I made a mistake, I apologized for it. I don’t know how many times I can say mea culpa — mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.”

Despite the repeated apologies, Mr. McDonald said he was particularly concerned about the precedent the justice’s actions would set.

“Is it your testimony that you think it is appropriate or proper to withhold information?” he asked.

Justice Sullivan pointed to other occasions in which judges had delayed the release of rulings to help secure an appointment. He said he believed he was the first to be punished for such action.

Justice Sullivan said he viewed the ruling on public records as controversial because it had become a “hot-button issue.” In the last several years, news organizations and others have filed a series of lawsuits demanding access to particular court documents.

Justice Sullivan suggested that the state’s highest court could set a deadline for releasing decisions, as some lower courts have done. But he said that given the controversy prompted by his actions, he doubted that another judge would do as he had done. “They’d have to be stupid to,” he said, provoking several muffled chuckles in the room.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Rell announced her nomination of Judge Chase T. Rogers of the State Appellate Court as the next chief justice. The General Assembly is expected to begin confirmation hearings within the next several weeks.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: In Hartford, Rebuked Justice Apologizes for Delaying News of ’06 Ruling. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe